Seeking help from dosing gurus

[mrhasan]

Originally Posted by FragIt Dan

After having the same problem with determining Mg concentration and dosing requirements of Taylor Aquatics, I asked Brad (Taylor) what the concentration was (I live a short drive from where he used to work). He wouldn't tell me, but he said it was comparable to other liquid commercial products. I wasn't too keen on his answer and despite wanting to support a local business, I have switched over to Brightwell Aquatics products which lists concentration in detail. You can probably safely assume T.A. Mg is about the same concentration as any of the ones listed on the reef calculators. I think you will be surprised how much Mg you need to add to raise it. Personally, I use dry anhydrous Mg.
As for dosing alk, seems like you have that dialed in!
Ca... you can let it fluctuate like that but it will cost your corals a bit of energy to adjust to the swings in concentration. This is energy they would normally be able to put into growth and regeneration. If you want your corals to be healthier and grow faster (as funny as it sounds you actually might not want them to grow faster) you can add Ca between WCs to keep it more constant.
Regarding cost of testing: it is more expensive when you are learning but gets cheaper once you are dialed in. Depending on cost of WCs, it can be cheaper to do more of them and less testing. I think you will find once you are dialed in you will test every couple of weeks or even less. I test when things don't look right. For me, that's every couple of months. This slows growth, but I am not too worried about that. They seem to grow plenty fast personally, if you are standing at the tank dosing already, I would dose Ca and Mg at the same time.
Good luck!


Dan

Thank you so much Dan

I am a bit worried about the drop of 1dkh per day in my 20 gallon (filled with 50+ corals) but I guess its just the environment that got created in my tank.

I was thinking of Ca dosing, maybe like increase it by 20ppm or something in the middle of the week.

I thought I would go away without dosing but I guess I proved that one can "overstock" corals too :P

My corals are growing like crazy and I wouldn't mind some slow growth :P I just need the colors.

Thanks for typing that detailed reply with iphone. Typing in such "small" screen can be tough....you might want to move to something "bigger" Galaxy Note perhaps?

[phi delt reefer]

colors will come with extra feeding - if your tank is nutrient starved then you will get dull colors. It sounds like your alk, calc, mag are within reasonable ranges so i would look to feeding to help with that.

[mrhasan]

Originally Posted by phi delt reefer

colors will come with extra feeding - if your tank is nutrient starved then you will get dull colors. It sounds like your alk, calc, mag are within reasonable ranges so i would look to feeding to help with that.

I don't like ULNS so there are some nutrients but not enough to brown out SPS. I do feed them once every week and I dose amino acid.

[phi delt reefer]

Originally Posted by mrhasan

I don't like ULNS so there are some nutrients but not enough to brown out SPS. I do feed them once every week and I dose amino acid.

your banner signature says 0 phophates and 0 nitrates... thats a ULNS

[mrhasan]

Originally Posted by phi delt reefer

your banner signature says 0 phophates and 0 nitrates... thats a ULNS

Ah clever

[FragIt Dan]

A drop of 1dKh/day is consistent with what I would expect from your description of your system. I am getting 1-2 dKh drop/day in all of my tanks. I dose about 750ml of dKh/day total between all of them to keep up. Once you determine how much Ca and Mg you need to add for every 1 dKh, you can just test dKh and add the appropriate ratio of each. Then it's just a matter of testing for the others much less often.
Dan
PS-Typing on the computer now .

Originally Posted by mrhasan

Thank you so much Dan

I am a bit worried about the drop of 1dkh per day in my 20 gallon (filled with 50+ corals) but I guess its just the environment that got created in my tank.

I was thinking of Ca dosing, maybe like increase it by 20ppm or something in the middle of the week.

I thought I would go away without dosing but I guess I proved that one can "overstock" corals too :P

My corals are growing like crazy and I wouldn't mind some slow growth :P I just need the colors.

Thanks for typing that detailed reply with iphone. Typing in such "small" screen can be tough....you might want to move to something "bigger" Galaxy Note perhaps?

[mrhasan]

Originally Posted by FragIt Dan

A drop of 1dKh/day is consistent with what I would expect from your description of your system. I am getting 1-2 dKh drop/day in all of my tanks. I dose about 750ml of dKh/day total between all of them to keep up. Once you determine how much Ca and Mg you need to add for every 1 dKh, you can just test dKh and add the appropriate ratio of each. Then it's just a matter of testing for the others much less often.
Dan
PS-Typing on the computer now .

Thanks Dan